Ma Cherie
by CerealK
Summary: Looking back on it now, it must have been fate that made me get lost in the French Quarter so long ago in New Orleans. For in a dark corner on an old street called 'Le Rouge' I met my destiny and his devil red lips.


**Title**: Ma Cherie.

**Pairing**: SasuNaru

**Rating**: *dies laughing* This is a trick question right? Right?

**Warnings**: The setting is slightly historical, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 1910's. Also, warnings for crossdressing and French and Louisiana Creole words.

**A/N:** What can I say- mebbe I'm not off my historical fic kick.

**Disclaimer**: Naruto is not mine.

**Notes:** Nartuo speaks a combination of Louisiana Creole, French and English

**Translations**:_ Bonswa m'sieur. Ye pel mo, Saphir_- Louisiana Creole. Good Night Mister. They call me Saphire.

**AN:** Yes, For all the French speakers out there, I chose the feminine form of Cherie for a reason. Naruto crossdresses here and that is how Sasuke chooses to remember him.

Funny note: Cher in New Orleans Creole is pronounced 'Sha'.

* * *

_The Prologue_

_Setting: 1890's New Orleans. Mardi Gras. A dark street in the French Quarter. Midnight_

"I'd ask what a good, wholesome lookin' gentleman such as yourself was doing in these here parts of the French Quarter...but you'd be _surprised_ how many good wholesome lookin' gentlemen we get around here."

Those were the first words that passed between us on that night, so long ago, in the old heart of New Orleans.

It took a minute for me to orient myself in the pressing darkness. It was very late but the alcohol I'd been consuming all night rendered me incapable of care. Apparently it had rendered my sense of direction irrelevant too because I was on a street I couldn't recognise and the houses on the line were strange to me. The cobblestones under my feet here were older than the ones on High Street and the stone and redwood buildings sat slumped on their foundations as though they'd had had eons to settle into them. Later I would recall it as a place of history- an ancient ground where mysterious and magical things happened to unsuspecting men but right then I just considered completely myself lost in a dilapidated part of town. The sounds of celebration on High Street were nothing but echoes here, the occasional mad shriek tearing through the night like knives.

And that reminded me-

"Who goes!" I snapped- perhaps a bit louder than warranted- but it was late and I was drunk. I staggered a bit on unsteady feet as I whirled around desperately searching for the owner of the husky voice while trying to look intimidating in case it was an undesireable. I suspect now that I had failed miserably in the latter for the throaty chuckle that floated out of the gloom sounded amused.

"Aw now good monsieur, no need fo' all that anxiety. Just me here- I aint gonna hurt you."

I still couldn't see much of anything. Squinting I could discern an alcove- an alley maybe- a bit recessed between the battered sides to two old shops. A glimmer of moonlight revealed the tarnished metal of an old shipping crate and a chance of luck showed me the dull steel tip of a boot that rested upon it. That voice, that raspy sexless voice had come from someone hidden in that alcove and, though I had not yet been attacked, I couldn't trust if the voice was friendly or not. I was new blood to New Orleans in those days, the youngest son of an oriental merchant tycoon who'd made his fortune by old money invested in new steam boat technology. Ostensibly, I was only in the old south to learn the ways of my newly acquired inheritance but currently I was engaged in other activities- namely the bottom of the rum flask I had clutched in my left hand.

"Here, _where_?" I accused, "I can't see _anything_."

An elegant column of thin smoke billowed into the air from a point above the shoes that I couldn't identify. There was a shift of movement, a twist of a wrist and the burn of a cigarette end that explained the stranger's rasp to be the gift gained from a habit of lifetime smoking. There was another shift, a deep inhale, a rustle of old fabric and a flash of starlight across burnished brass beads and old felt.

"If you don't mind my saying Monsieur, I just don't think you be looking very properly."

I wavered between decisions. Drunk as I was I couldn't decide if the voice was male or female. It had a sexless quality about it that caused my inebriated mind to stutter- but I did know one thing, the speaker was a native. There were deep drawls on the syllables and every vowel was thoroughly stretched and moulded into that unique Southern pattern I'd come to enjoy hearing. Creole accents were as completely exotic to me then as they still are now -but I'm getting ahead of myself. I was stuck between drunkenly admiring the husky drawl and an abstract concern for my own safety.

I remember that I then sighed hard and my shoulders sagged under the expensive suit I'd worn to meetings earlier that day. In the end my mind, tired, tried for the truth.

"Are you… dangerous to me?"

A beat. My heart rate quickened for a minute but then, "No."

Tired I hefted the bottle up to my lips. Rum was such a common drink. I drank it purely because I knew it would anger my father- an aristocrat only in his own mind, no matter what our family tree said.

"Will you reveal yourself?"

Another plume of smoke.

"Well….alright, but I warn you- that usually costs extra."

Wait…_what_?

The words had been said with wry humour and I'd no time to ponder them because then something- the person, a cloud, _existence_- shifted and a slender figure materialised from the darkness. Perched atop a pile of old crates like a queen in high court was a slim body wrapped in a mishmash of somethings that hailed straight out of France's eighteenth century. The dress was all scarlet silk ruffles and gold edging with a tightly boned corset clasping the lean torso unforgivingly. Old burnt brass buttons and faded golden beads studded the ribs and seams of the garment. An obscene split revealed legs clad in garters, black mesh and steel buckled high boots. Both the arms were encased in black gloves, an old fashioned cigarette holder tucked daintily between two fingers of the cocked left hand.

So it was a woman after all.

The head lifted up and it was the first time I processed the large floppy tan hat that had, in its former life, surely been used for gardening if its crowning glory of an overlarge felt sunflower was anything to go by. The flap covered half the woman's face and shadow shrouded the other half- but from what I could see she had a strong jaw and lips flaming enough to match her dress.

I remember that in that split second it came to my mind that my mother would have said that no proper lady paints her lips devil red- and then- I realised.

I blinked.

"You- you're a prostitute." I stated both tactlessly and utterly awed. I'd never seen a prostitute before- my parents had never allowed me into the streets of Boston unchaperoned.

A twist of the lips as the figure dropped the smoking cigarette to the crate and crushed it beneath a steel toe. "And you cher, _clearly_ do not belong here."

A swift ungainly hop and the figure was then level with me and brushing down her skirts. She was…well…ridiculously short and a bit brusquer than I'd expected her to be. Weren't prostitutes supposed to be all sleek movements and effortless seduction?

I blinked again when she straightened and gathered her skirts before dipping into a full formal curtsey.

"Bonswa m'sieur. Ye pel mo, Saphir."

My knowledge of creole was hazardous at the best of times best but I believe she had just introduced herself as…Sapphire?

"I-," I faltered unsure as I looked down at the full curtsey, floppy had tight bodice stretched across a flat chest, squarish shoulders and stockinged legs. It was a mark of how foolish I'd been at that age to not see the signs but alas recriminations aren't in order. The mystery of it all was what made the night so special to me.

"I am Sasuke." I finally replied realising that she wasn't budging the curtsey until I'd replied in kind.

She straightened and a painted lips twisted into an amused smile; a smile which only grew wider when I kept staring at her devil red mouth.

"Now _that's_ not a Creole name, no mistake." She quipped in that deep raspy voice of hers. "Bienvenue to New Orleans Sasuke." She continued, pronouncing the 'Orleans' in that '_Aw-_lins' way that sent shivers down my spine.

"Where am I?"

She tilted her head and moonlight glinted of golden skin and the hollow of her throat. "Specifically or generally? Generally- this be the Quarter cher- a stone's throw from the bayou and all the fanged things that be living in it. Specifically-" I watched enchanted as she flung her arms out and pirouetted, gesturing majestically to the ruins that surrounded us, "This here street is _le Rouge _"

"The red?" What a ridiculous name.

"Ay," she whispered face tilted away, voice suddenly melancholy, "The Red…Red for the passionate, the angry, the damned…" she abruptly spun back around to me and grinned- I wondered if she was drunk as well. "You be a _very_ long way from High Street monsieur- your good _maman_ would fain want you minglin' with our kind."

And that just reminded me why I was drunk in the first place. Old bitterness seeped into my stomach and soured my rum to bile. I grit my teeth and staggered a few steps in some direction, not caring.

"My _maman_," I mocked, furious righting myself and plodding righteously into the darkness, vaguely aware that the prostitute kept step beside me. "My precious _maman_ who loves her son so much she wouldn't blink to breed me off like cattle. Give her a heart attack yes, to know that I'd rather die than marry that- that-" Disgusted I took a swig of rum and felt old when all the righteous anger seep out of me.

"I haven't- I just- I'm nineteen for Christ's sake, I just wanted a little-"

Honestly, back then I didn't know what I wanted. Like all silly nineteen year olds I had thought myself immortal and that the world was mine for the pillaging. Son to wealthy parents I'd grown up with cold comforts and disdain, and I had accepted that. I suppose however that some buried part of me wanted what all young men of that age wanted- adventure, a sword, a passion- high seas, loose gold- looser lovers.

I'd have died before I admitted it though. Good little Sasuke- perfect stoic Sasuke I was- cold and beautiful as the moon. Thank you, Mum and Dad.

I'd stopped and was staring off listlessly into the darkness. Cicadas buzzed invisible in the cold night air and my head thrummed with old rage. And bloody fuck my rum was finished.

"T'wont be your Ma who screams when the gators sink into you." The deep voice replied softly "That way be nothing but deep water cher… and it won't hurt _tes_ _parents_ nothing if you let them win."

I spun around suddenly feeling like a lost child desperate for some sign in the darkness- a path to the way out of the miserable hell I foresaw for my life. She stood there in pale moonlight, short boyish little body impossibly still like something out of a story; lips blazing red with promise and something spiritual that I wouldn't find in soulless Boston. Soundlessly she held out a gloved hand offering the only chance that seemed forthcoming and I, drunk, freezing and utterly unbalanced made the best decision I would ever make in the entirety of my life.

I staggered forward- and _grabbed_ it.

* * *

And so it begins. Another New Story. Heh- why do I do these things to myself.

1. -If there is anybody out there fluent in Louisiana Creole and would like to help a poor non-speaker out could you please contact me (either by PM or Review) to help me translate a few phrases?

2. I have recently started doing commissions- that is: I will draw pictures or write stories for payment. I usually advertise on Y gal but figure that I should be fair and just mention it here too. If anyone is interest just let me know and we'll figure out the price. I mostly accept paypal and the prices are in USD.

-Cheers!

-Cereal.

Long Live the Yaoi Rebellion!


End file.
